


He's My Black Pearl

by sexiudreams (Loki_Likey_Thor_Odinson)



Series: EXO Horror [2]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - No Band, Blood, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Fisherman Do Kyungsoo | D.O, Fisherman Kim Jongin | Kai, Horror, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mutilation, Oysters, Self-Mutilation, self mutilation, sort of they get distracted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-24 01:51:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15619851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loki_Likey_Thor_Odinson/pseuds/sexiudreams
Summary: Kyungsoo is just a normal fisherman in a loving relationship. He’s heard urban legends about seafood and oysters and bugs, but South Korea’s urban legends are always weird and untrue. They’re definitely untrue, right?Insanitytag for the loss of mental stability during the fiction





	He's My Black Pearl

**Author's Note:**

> Please be warned that I didn't tag some of the stuff in this as it included some major spoilers. Please proceed at your own discretion.

Kyungsoo was just finishing his rounds for the day. He'd been out fishing for a few months- for most of the year now - and he was looking forward to finally getting home. 

He had spent all day ensuring his crew got the best prices for their catches, sharing it fairly despite some complaints from the higher up crew. Kyungsoo liked to pay his men the same maximum wage, ensuring everyone was paid the highest amount. It often led to arguments on payday about harder workers not being paid enough if people who did less work got the same amount of money as them. He had spent an hour smoothing it over, insisting his workers to be all treated the same and that many of the usually lower paid ones needed the extra money. Two of his crew members had taken their final paycheck and quit, and he had spent an extra two hours trying to find new crew - it hadn't been hard; many people trusted Kyungsoo as a Captain, and knew of how stern but kind he was to the men that risked their lives on his boat. He had gone through numerous applications before finally hiring two new members. He had helped one of his rookies that had just completed his first fishing voyage sell fish for the correct prices in the market, and now he was ensuring his boat was fully docked, safe, and was helping to clean up.   
  
The market always left a mess around the beach, which would often be dragged out by the tide, adding to the ocean pollution and it broke Kyungsoo's heart. He often heard about other fishermen accidentally pulling out exotic catches, distorted and misshapen because of being caught plastic, or heard of animals washing up dead, their stomach full of waste that humans carelessly left. Every market day, and often during his time off, he'd join the masses to clean the rubbish left strewn across the beach, reported repeated litterers to those who would deal with it, and found pride in his actions in helping the environment.  
  
Kyungsoo wasn't stupid; he was more than aware fishing helped destroy the environment - he supposed his eagerness to help the ocean in different ways was his way of repenting for it - but growing up in a family of fishermen as far back as the 1800s, he didn't get much of a choice of careers when the time came.  
  
Kyungsoo couldn't work for an office, he was much too free-spirited and active to be curled up for seven hours a day, tapping at a keyboard. He didn't have amazing qualifications, his family barely being able to put him through high school. University wasn't within his grasp - which wasn't something that annoyed him in any way - and so, once he graduated high school, he became an apprentice under his father, helping haul the catches to shore and to the ice buckets, preparing fish when needed, and ensuring it was put in the correct boxes. He fulfilled the orders from the village's residents looking for specific fish, and would often not leave the docks until every last order for the week was finished.

He had thrived where he worked, and eventually, when he had turned twenty, his Father took him out on his first six-month fishing trip, looking specifically for crabs and lobsters.  
  
That trip was when he had met Jongin, the small, shy oyster boy. They had been radioed in that a resident wanted a specific breed of oysters for when they returned and had asked specifically for the Dyo's to fetch them. The ship docked for the first time in two months, and Kyungsoo was sent to ask the residents of the nearby fishing village for help. He had gone around many stores and small market stalls, before finally being sent to the 'Kims on the shore'. Kyungsoo hadn't had to look for long before he found the small hut on the beach, a man reading through a book as two children ran around laughing. Kyungsoo had introduced himself and explained why he was there. The boy had been brought over, explained that he was Jongin, one of the best oyster fishermen in the village.  
  
Jongin had joined them on the boat, directing them to the best oyster fishing spot for the specific breed - the _Tahitian black-lipped Pinctada margaritifera_ \- and had free dived in nothing but swimming trunks in waters Kyungsoo was sure had sharks roaming into. He thought he would see the young man eaten when a shark did indeed come to investigate him as he hauled a bag of catch up but watched with amazement as Jongin easily pushed it away without fear until it left, discerning that Jongin wasn't prey.  
  
Kyungsoo had grown closer to Jongin, even sharing bunks to have whispered conversations together as everyone else slumbered, and when they returned to Jongin's small fishing village, his father had offered Jongin a job. His parents had agreed, and Jongin boarded the ship once more, coming back to the small fishing village that Kyungsoo had grown up in. Within months, they had started a shy relationship, working on the docks together, setting sail with each other.  
  
But then Kyungsoo's father had fallen sick. Kyungsoo had taken up the captaincy of his father's ship at the ripe age of twenty-one, and many people doubted him. Jongin settled for a job on the docks and at the age of twenty became the main manager. He ensured everyone's catches were stored correctly and fairly, sorting any issues with ship and boat docking (the number of arguments of _that's our spot_ often drove him insane). He was always on the pier where Kyungsoo's crew would disembark for a kiss and hug and soft whispers of _I missed you so much, I missed you too, I'll see you at home_.  
  
Kyungsoo shook his head with a smile and bent down to collect a can that was wedged between two rocks. He and Jongin had been together for just over five years now, and he was looking forward to celebrating their anniversary in a few days.

He frowned a little, dragged back to his current actions as the can refused to come free from the rocks. Sighing, Kyungsoo set his collection bag down and leaned awkwardly on the strangely arranged rocks to lift the one pinning the can to the ground. It started to give purchase, lifting slightly, but then Kyungsoo lost his footing, sliding down the rocks. The sound of his pant leg ripping and the slicing feeling of a the sharp edge of the natural landscape sliding through his skin caused him to curse and quickly stumbled down to the sandy slope of the beach before he sat down. He yanked the ruined fabric up over his knee to observe what damage had been done.   
  
A gash sat across the front of his calf, stretching across most of the front of it and Kyungsoo sighed a little. He left the can where it was, picked up his trash bag and hobbled back to the docks. The lights were mostly off, which meant Jongin was already home and just a few workers left were finishing up. Kyungsoo was quick to drop his bag into the bin for it to be sorted and recycled by volunteers in the morning and found the nearest first aid kit. He carefully wrote that he had used some bandages, before getting them out and securing them around the wound. He realised he had forgotten to clean it out, but now the bandage was on, he was reluctant to take it off in case it irritated the wound further - already, it was sticking to the blood sliding from the new opening into his body, and taking it off might accidentally open the wound a little further.  
  
Kyungsoo sighed and shook his head, disposing of the bandage wrappers before going to his locker to grab his bag. He'd get a taxi home, rather than walking on his leg.

 

\--

 

Kyungsoo forgot about his wound over the next few days, spending all his days either in bed, or cuddled up on his crappy couch in Jongin's arms, sharing soft kisses and stories of occurrences whilst the other was absent.   
  
Kyungsoo was laughing brightly at an anecdote about one of the fishermen going overboard from his small, wooden fishing boat just off sure, scared at the size of a medium-sized tuna he had managed to catch, before cursing and bolting upright. He scratched the area around the bandage through his pyjama bottoms: it was suddenly itching. The feeling took over his entire leg, and Jongin leaned over, frowning as he observed the sudden change in Kyungsoo's mood.

Kyungsoo scratched as hard as he dared before trying to ignore it, brushing Jongin off.  
  
"It's nothing, I just caught it on a rock when I got back. It's not too bad, it just started itching badly."  
  
"Do you want to check it?"  
  
"No, no. The bandage stuck quickly to the blood, give it a chance for the scabbing to secure around the skin before taking it off. I don't want to risk opening it further or reopening it. I’ll check it tomorrow morning and give it a decent soak in the bath and wash it out, alright?”  
  
Jongin nodded, nibbling on his lip nervously for a second before he smiled. "Hey, I know something we haven't done in months."  
  
Kyungsoo smirked a little and leaned back on the couch. "Oh yeah?"  
  
Jongin grinned and gently tugged the hem of Kyungsoo's bottoms down, grinning wider when he saw that Kyungsoo had chosen not to wear underwear now he was home. He nudged Kyungsoo to lift his feet, letting him tug them completely off and took extra care around the bandage before moving to start kissing around the area.  
  
Kyungsoo smiled softly, feeling Jongin's lips around the irritated skin; it didn't help the itching feeling, but it definitely made Kyungsoo feel better about the injury.  
  
Better until Jongin shot backwards with a yelp, holding the side of his face. Kyungsoo jerked forward. "Nini?!"  
  
"Something under your bandage just fucking cut me!" A small cut was present to the side of Jongin's eye, blood ever so gently sliding down his tanned skin and Kyungsoo stared at the bandage. It had gotten tighter over the past few days, since he had first put it on, and he swallowed. "Go- go grab some scissors."  
  
Jongin rushed off to the kitchen, almost tripping over the living room rug, and Kyungsoo leaned down, already struggling to undo the knot he had put in the white material. His heart was racing as he managed to pull it through, unwrapping it quickly.  
  
The scream that left his throat when it was off caused their over the road neighbour's to turn their lights on, disrupted.  
  
Across the wound, without a single gap between them, oysters were present, growing, living, breathing across the open wound. Jongin's scream followed shortly afterwards, staring in horror before he ran for the phone in the kitchen, scissors left abandoned on the floor. Kyungsoo stared, trying to remember how to breathe before he fell to his knees off the couch, grabbing the scissors.  
  
He opened them, shakily lined it up around one of the oysters and closed them, only to shriek in pain. He shuddered, but did it again, closing them harder and shrieking louder with each sawing motion. Blood slipped down his leg, making him question how deeply the oysters were ingrained in his leg. Jongin had to grab his hand, both of them shaking as he spoke hurriedly down the phone, tears pouring down his face as he begged for the ambulance to get there quickly.  
  
Kyungsoo stared at his leg one more time, only to faint when he saw from the sawing that the oysters had firmly cemented themselves into the muscles in his leg.

 

\--

 

Soft beeping woke Kyungsoo up, and he groaned softly. His eyes flickered open, only for them to be assaulted by glaringly bright artificial lights. From the luminance above his head, he assumed he was in a hospital, and tried to rack his memory to remember how he had gotten here.   
  
He recalled waking up in a hospital bed, and then a mask was placed over his face and he'd fallen back to sleep as he heard someone say “surgery”.  
  
It hit him like a brick.  
  
Kyungsoo shot upright, and dragged the blankets off of him, only to stare at his leg. It was empty, the gash sewn up - except for one thing. The oyster he had tried to cut out of his skin was still present, the skin around it irritated and looking like it was developing a rash. Kyungsoo teared up and reached out to tug on it, only to scream out as it felt like the muscle in his leg was tugged. The door was thrown open and a doctor rushed in, Jongin behind him. Jongin ran in, almost tripping over his feet before tugging Kyungsoo's hand away from it and the doctor was quick to examine it before he sat down.  
  
Kyungsoo sobbed.  
  
The rock he cut his leg open on, the doctor had informed him, must have been covered in oyster eggs washed in by the tide. Having not cleaned it out, the eggs remained in the wound and set root deeply, feeding on Kyungsoo's blood to grow and live. Under the bandage, kept dry and warm, they had thrived, growing quickly. Surgery to remove them had gone well, other than the one still present in his leg - the roots the oyster had made were so deep, removing it could lead to paralysation in or loss of his right leg. There was nothing they could do to remove it safely.

Jongin asked desperately how Kyungsoo couldn’t have even noticed something like this and Kyungsoo looked away. Truthfully, he had just been so happy to be back home with his partner, not even caring enough to tend to the gash and spend a few minutes away from him. The doctor explained the oysters themselves wouldn’t have required so much blood to stay alive and grow, even all of the hatching eggs drawing his blood at once - Kyungsoo wouldn’t have noticed any form of blood loss or weakening from the parasitic connection for at least a few weeks.  
  
Jongin held him as he cried, kissing his eyelids with little whispers of _it’s fine_ , _I love seafood_ , _I'm not going anywhere_ , anything to try and make Kyungsoo laugh between his tears. Nothing worked.  
  
From that day onwards, Kyungsoo rarely smiled anymore, often pained by the distorted nerves in his leg that the oyster shoved around to make room for itself. His frown got worse when he had to quit, the oyster growing too big to hide under his clothing anymore. His mental health got even worse when Jongin had to quit his job to help Kyungsoo, barely able to walk without support as the edges of the oyster stretched out past the sides of his leg.  
  
He smiled once, when the oyster opened, a soft plunk indicating something had fallen out of it. He had retrieved it and screamed for Jongin, holding a small black pearl in his hand, indicating that the oyster itself was a _Tahitian black-lipped Pinctada margaritifera_ \- the very same species Jongin had been hired to find for them when he and Kyungsoo had first met. He smiled a little when Jongin took it to his friend, a jeweller, who made it into small matching couple rings for them to wear, but often frowned when he saw his own. It lived on a chain around his neck, hidden under the shirts he wore each day - reminding him too much of the fact is was a rare species, one of the few to create black pearls. It ruined the memory of how he first met Jongin, the ring taunting him as the grey coloured pearl glinted in the light, just like Jongin’s excited eyes when he had been offered the job.  
  
Kyungsoo's fake smiles got better when he eventually landed work as a sideshow freak, sitting in shorts behind a panel of glass as people stared at and ogled him, not caring that he was a human being with actual feelings behind the glass. His fake smiles got strained when his pay was deducted due to his inability to do anything but sit down with his leg in front of him - it hadn’t been an issue before, but now people rarely came to see him. They couldn’t afford to keep him on the staff with their current profit intakes. His frown returned when their bills showed up, proving they were in severe debt because of one stupid freak accident and his own stupidity from exhaustion. Kyungsoo often wished he’d just thought to wash the stupid wound out, too tired from working most of the twenty-fours of that day for his tired mind to recall the simple fact.  
  
When Kyungsoo finally smiled again, Jongin wished it was a frown. Jongin wished it was a strained fake smile spread out across his face. He wished that Kyungsoo wasn't laughing again.  
  
Because the laugh escaping his lips, when Jongin came to check on him, was manic, with no sense of mental stability to it. The laugh on his lips was stretched out, horrifying creepily. It didn't help when Kyungsoo's tongue flicked out to gently lick blood from his lips. No, Jongin wished his boyfriend wasn't smiling anymore.  
  
Because he was laughing, saw in hand, his oyster infested leg detached from his body, and their white sheets were soaked with his boyfriend's blood as he cackled towards the ceiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Tahitian black-lipped Pinctada margaritifera - an oyster that produces black pearls
> 
> Inspired by one of the stories in [this Korean urban legends video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHlEge-TsMs)  
> If there's something horror wise u wanna see feel free to request me!


End file.
